This Blog is being updated by Travis's Mom with pictures and weekly emails received as he serves a 2 year mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in Fukuoka, Japan from May 2013-May 2015.
Travis would love to hear from you. Letters and packages should be mailed to him via USPS only. His address in Fukuoka, Japan is (each comma represents a new line):
Elder Travis J. Bloomfield,
Japan Fukuoka Mission,
9-16 Hirao-josuimachi,
Chuo-Ku,
Fukuoka-shi, Fukuoka,
810-0029, Japan

Monday, April 27, 2015

25 April 2015 - If You Simply Reach Out to Him, He Will Help You.

Hey,

This week was interesting. We had the iPad trainings in Kagoshima, Yamaguchi, Fukuoka, and Okinawa. Fun facts of the week. #1. We found an $80 flight to Okinawa. That rickety old airplane barely made it there. #2. We barely even made it on the $80 flight because Elder Hoskins and I were almost arrested at the airport. That was fun!! Not!! Elder Hoskins forgot he had his knife in the pocket of his backpack, and lucky for us it was a good 8 cm one which apparently is illegal to even carry around in Japan. Hah They ran the backpack through the scanner about 3 or 4x and kept asking us do you have a knife? And we just kept telling them of course not why would we have a knife. But, haha then Elder Hoskins remembered he had the knife from fishing still in there and the next thing we knew, there were about 5 security guards around us. Luckily, after explaining we were just gaijin missionaries, and then being complimented on our Japanese, they let us go 5 mins. before our plane took off. Lucky for us, President had already gone through security and went to his gate so he didn't see any of it :) But the trainings went well. Got to see Sasaki choro again one last time. He sure is a good man!

We worked with the Ginowan and Naha Zone Leaders a little bit while down in Okinawa. Funny/cool prayer experience we had. One of the other companionships was having a baptism at 1pm so we only had an hour 12-1pm to go finding with them, but we set a goal to find someone to bring to the baptism. We prayed and felt like we should work towards a specific traffic light, so we prayed again and planned with God to work in the direction of the traffic light and be there at about 12:50pm and prayed that person would be put in our path. So, we tried talking to everyone we could, and close to the traffic light just after 12:50 we heard someone yell "hey are you the Mormons?? I'm Judy from Taiwan!" We talked with Judy who is most likely one of the most entertaining/genki persons I've met in a while. We were pretty surprised when we first met her, she told us she went to the English class missionaries taught in Taiwan and she recently came to Okinawa and had actually been praying to find the Mormon church again. We asked her if she wanted to go check out the church and she just started jumping up and down in excitement. Then as we were walking to the church I explained there was going to be a baptism, and how she would be able to feel peace during the baptism and she just told us "today is the best day ever!" She was super funny and said many hilarious things as we brought her to the church and talked about the gospel. More evidence that God is listening and watching you always. If you simply reach out to Him, He will help you.

Hope everyone is doing well and genki!

Elder Bloomfield

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I told my "new" friend Judy I had to leave to catch a flight and she thought I mean't I was going home to America, so she got all excited and wanted to take a picture with me.

I didn't have time to spit, I had to brush on the go.

This is the last picture with Sasaki choro. It was taken just before leaving Okinawa.

The following are some pictures that were taken by Uchida shimai that she sent me.